Introducing zaTours and ask a question.

Hi all,

next month, I present during the Joomla User Group Nürnberg (JUGN) meeting a new component named zaTours . I’m sure this will be a great fun - we have a new meeting location and I can introduce this cool component in a very friendly atmospehre. Thanks Stefan! I do it more for our devs in the group, just to explain a bit nooku in german, but the component make also use of layer of awesome, so it will entertain the endusers under us too.

So I would like to ask now whether one is perhaps interested in a translation of this presentation? Perhaps a other Joomla UG? We can work on this together or I can also do it alone. But first, let me please explain you a bit how zaTours works and something about the history of this component. Really, this one has history!

zaTours is a enduser friendly bike/travel/walk/... -tours manager for the Joomla CMS and derivats. Build on top of Nooku framework and Google api calls. Sure, with all Google api limitations, e.g. max. 8 + 2 waypoints for maps. The primary idea behind it was to code a extension which makes it easy for me to organize & document a biking tour. Well, I started coding the component just for managing my planed, but never happened bike tour to JAB11 in Kerkrade, NL. But I had to cancel the tour finally because I was missing my brother’s wedding. My parents told me that I have only one brother and that community events happens all the time. And I’m 30+ o_O. This about history of zaTours :).

Now the present. Because I learned from Johan to trust in refactoring, I reworked the code in the latest weeks and keep it up to date with latest Nooku trunk, so that the component showcases now what you like for a tour. It's really pretty, but alpha.

The backend is super sexy, especially the backend forms for Nookuserver. Nookuserver is alpha 3 but beats joomla 1.5/1.6 in a very interesting part, the backend template. In UI, design and code. Everyone who looked to it honest must say that I speak the truth. Kudos to Tom and the rest of the crew! In this awesome enviroment you will have fun during you manage your tours. For Joomla I will provide later overrides for backend and frontend.

Creating a tour is easy and interactiv.

The component use in backend Google suggest for maps, clientside Mootools based inline validation, Google maps api with Direction, Waypoints, Elevation, Markers and live updates of the tour preview. The only point which I must rework is related to elevation stuff. I think I will make this optional in two ways, automatic by marked waypoint coordinates or manualy with the help of google maps suggest.

RADical

I killed pagination, stay tuned! Additional gift because Nooku simplified radical a lot for me and I could save time, is e.g. the sponsorship feature. I don’t put this in a extra component, but it can be put, sure. ... Sometimes you need a lot of money to realize your dream. Also playing with tables, rowsets and all the database oriented features from nooku and all the stored data - I added a game feature to it. Competion in that place where competion is good.

Shake hands.

I have coded two other LOA components, one for listing twitter messages and one for dispaying flickr images. The first one is based on juitter, IMO one of the coolest twitter scripts around. I will show during the presentation how easy all this components interact toghether. I also trust in the Nooku guys who will improve the installer. Then I give you one install package and wish you fun.

Are you interested in a translation of this upcomming presentaion? Yes, then please comment. It makes a difference if I must prepare this for english too.

P.S. I will show you some screenshots in the next days, don’t ask what happend with the ones which I made yesterday.

Christian